Yearning
by Novoux
Summary: After the death of his sisters, one bout of grief soaked in alcohol brings Izaya to call his mother. Shizaya; trigger warning for self-harm and depression.


_"I didn't know you'd call this late at night,"_ she murmurs into the phone, the same tone of pity-worry-concern-confusion she always uses, never straying from the normal sound of false care. Izaya knows this well, the tsk in her voice the strongly hinted at point in which she picks up the phone and he can hear the sigh in her voice. They haven't spoken much, not since the funeral weeks ago.

"Neither did I," Izaya sips at his wine, a head on his shoulder and the edge of a blanket slipping off the other bony one, protruding further with each day he forgets to take care of himself. Hence the blond head on him, warm and soft and unknowing, sweet and too much of a kind presence to think clearly. On his second glass of wine, he should know better than to abuse his limits.

 _"You've never called before, not without reason,"_ she says, the truth hurting to a fault burying itself in another swallow of wine, bitter as it burns bubbles of carbonation and swollen sinuses down his throat. _"Is something the matter?"_

It's a stupid question, though interesting how she asks it anyway when she knows the answer well enough. Both of them do, as well as knowing his mother doesn't miss out on the gift of analyzing others. Though in searching for answers and drowning out questions in the bottom of his wine glass, after promising Shizu-chan that he wouldn't have another, he finds himself at odds.

Without saying a word, he swallows thickly, trying to think of an excuse to end the call or whether or not he should hang up. A mother knows her child's silence, not in the way that she does of two of her daughters dying and even if it's never been said the reticent accusation of knowing more than let on hangs in the air, she doesn't bring it up.

A quiet, bitten back sigh. Silence, like she's rubbing at the bridge of her nose in frustration, because all Izaya has been is a nuisance and she doesn't even _know_ how much of that is the truth. _"What's keeping you up tonight, Izaya?"_ He hates how she hums in that tone of concern, the same one he remembers as a child while soft hands smoothed his hair back and wiped his had been years ago, too many to keep track of and not enough time, buzzed and possibly drunk off too many memories at once.

"Nothing much," he answers without meaning to, words slurred softly into the phone that he rarely ever uses except for times like this, rare and this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, or once only when alcohol inhibits everything except feeling, the only thing it's supposed to staunch. But as soon as it's out of his mouth and he scrunches his eyes shut in inebriated frustration, his mother doesn't make a sound, not as the fingers shift in his. He gives a reassuring squeeze, kissing the messy blond hair sleeping on his shoulder.

Things are awkward between them. It would only make sense if explained that way. _"You are drinking?"_ She tends to pick up on the little things, Izaya reminds himself as he takes another two, four, eight swallows and barely holds the phone away, resting it on the table. And it's close to waiting for the inevitable burn, the concentration of trying too hard to console what isn't there and rip off old scabs.

 _"Why?"_

Izaya huffs, quieter when Shizuo shifts in his sleep and murmurs something, eyelids twitching as he teeters on the border of waking up or staying asleep, surrendering to the latter. He knows how unsightly it is, how it's not fathomable for an informant, preoccupied with his health and mind, to be drinking an absurd amount of alcohol over processing the information of the deaths of two little girls in the family. In whatever sort of family they have, seeing as he doesn't know where his mother is, doesn't really care. Not after turning ten did he continue to care any longer.

"Yes, Okaasan, I'm drunk," Izaya confesses in a straight shot of slurring a dirty confession, one saved for the back of his mind for further humiliation if his sober brain remembers in the morning what he's doing to himself now. "It's not important to note, I know that. Spare me the lecture, I'm not willing to hear it." More slurs and mistakes come as he tries to prepare himself, slipping over his tongue and the prickle in his eyes that won't stop despite the fact they're too dry to produce anything but fallen eyelashes. "And you know that you don't really care all that much, it'd be a waste. I don't need any more…"

 _"Izaya,"_ she tsks softly into the phone, voice too soft for him to stifle the warble that rests in his throat and he doesn't know why it's there in the first place. _"I'm sorry you're—"_

"I don't want to hear it!" Izaya hisses, slurring roughly and the slam of his heel into the floor nearly startles his sleeping boyfriend awake, his fingers tightening around the phone where below his sleeve the opened lines from the edge of a knife start to stretch and pull, oozing more blood. Shizu-chan hasn't seen anything, lulled to security by short kisses that taste bitter and tired, trying smiles. "I don't want your forgiveness, I certainly don't need it from _you._ "

Silence. Maybe he's said too much, maybe he doesn't mean to. _"I understand. Though it isn't why you're talking to me, are you."_ And it's funny how she knows better, sad in being that she's always been right about most things and Izaya hates how she can read him without being there, as if every wall he's put up means nothing to her and she can tear them down as she pleases. He almost hopes she won't mention it, the accident on their minds keeping Izaya anchored to lifelines of alcohol and a boyfriend who is too kind and too forgiving for his own good and too unaware of so many things wrong.

As soon as he realizes he's taking deeper breaths, stuttering over them as his eyes turn sharp with saltwater, his okaasan is acutely aware, bringing back the dying conversation that should've never happened. _"Is your boyfriend there with you, Izaya?"_ And in between hiccups and soft, stifled noises of defeat, he bitterly recalls that his sisters must have said something about he and Shizuo dating to their mother at one point in the past, though it's too late to dispute now.

What he should do is hang up, refuse to let the painful streaks of wet ache down instead of blinking them away as soon as they start crawling back from the swollen ducts in his eyes. For some reason he doesn't, his fingers in Shizuo's as he presses another kiss to his boyfriend's head, feeling the hollow pangs of anguish starting to ring with the alcohol draining into his blood. What comes up is a squeezing pain in his throat, strangling out the sounds of giving up into cracked noises filtering through the phone.

 _"Don't keep him in the dark, Izaya."_ She gives a gentle murmur, soothing as she's always been, etched in a barrier of being gone for too long and too much distance apart to keep the full impact of her words. _"If he's going to be there for you, you need to let him in. Talk to the one you trust the most."_ Pain lingers in her voice, tinged with a certain sadness Izaya hasn't heard in a long time—disregarded by the fact he doesn't care much anymore, drunk enough almost to forget everything like the way she talks to him is too formal for family, knowing well enough that they aren't.

"Why do you care?" The slip-ups in his words, calling her by the name she can't keep the title for, all disregarded in the name of pain and drunkenness like the wetness in his eyes threatening to spill over. "Why do you care at all? Are you just amusing yourself now that you've lost your children?"

It's a low blow, deep and stinging with the ache of losing too much torn wide open, and Kyouko Orihara keeps herself composed, the sounds of her only child, _her son,_ softly crying over the phone as a too painful reminder of what she's lost. _"Izaya, you don't have to listen to me, I understand why you wouldn't want to. But just for a moment, hear what I have to say."_

Izaya doesn't make a sound of acknowledgment, hot tears burning down his cheeks and spilling in his nearly empty glass of wine, deciding whether or not to fill it again. Except it can only keep the darkness that stings his eyes behind heavy walls for so long. It's not like him to be like this, nor is it to cry on the phone to a woman he hasn't spoken to in years and never came to the funeral.

 _"Take deep breaths, Izaya,"_ she shushes him, _"and know it's okay to cry. You need to let it go to let the pain heal. Just let it out, you'll feel better when you do."_

Over her words she hears the grief in the hiccups of his breaths, attempting deeper breaths as per her instructions while losing any sense of control. _"I know it hurts, but you can't keep it to yourself for this long. You can cry, it's the only way to keep from hurting yourself any longer."_

Silence returns after several agonizing sounds of rough cries, ringing in her ears and the emptiness of her chest as she hears her estranged son cry harder than she's ever heard. And the play of whether or not to comfort him resolves itself in her mind, keeping her tone calm and gentle, being the source of comfort she should have been all those many years ago. Despite knowing that apologies don't fix what she's done.

"I-I, I don't want to l-lose y-you," it comes over the phone, Izaya's head hanging as he keeps himself up, tears dripping freely from his eyes in a moment of regret. "But I-I already h-have…"

 _"You haven't lost me, Izaya,"_ Kyouko shushes him again, soft whispers coming over the phone while he doesn't know her own cheeks are brimming with unshed sorrows. _"I'm right here for you, I'm never going to leave you again."_ Her imagination paints a cruel picture of rubbing her son's back, holding him close as he laments over the loss of his sisters, her own beautiful daughters. It's not fair to isolate her only son, or to realize he's all she has left after all this time in a tearful confession that makes her own self-control falter.

But Izaya isn't coherent any longer, the only answer being weeping, stifled cries hushed in his arm as he sets his phone on the table in an attempt to wipe at his sore eyes. She doesn't know of the scars on his arms, the new ones that are there as a reminder to the drunken nights spent pretending not to feel a thing and crumbling before he can sleep again.

Minutes pass, stretching in long pauses of silence as Kyouko murmurs apologies and comfort to him, waiting patiently with the quiet tone of her voice as Izaya calms himself down when he can't breathe with hyperventilation and blocked sinuses.

 _"Izaya, go get your boyfriend and go to bed tonight,"_ Okaasan chimes in again, softly firm in her instructions. _"You've been suffering enough for something that not even you could have prevented. Don't let this burden weigh on your shoulders any longer than it has been."_

He stares at his phone blearily, head throbbing and unaware of the tightening grip on his hand that strengthens with the sounds of his boyfriend waking up from Izaya's shoulder. _"You need to get some sleep and be with someone who loves you. From what I know, that's him. Take care of yourself, don't be afraid to ask for comfort that you need."_ She doesn't see the nod, barely there and dripping with stray tears, but she sounds satisfied with the lack of grieving.

Shizuo's head rises, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and the edge of the blanket falls from Izaya's shoulder. _"Goodnight, Izaya. Get some rest. I'll see you soon."_

Shizuo hears the phone click, the soft buzz of the dial tone and he looks to Izaya, finding his cheeks red and swollen just like Izaya's eyes, heavy with too much. One look to the nearly empty wine glass and the bottle of wine on the table causes him to stand, draping the blanket over Izaya's shoulders with a kiss to the forehead and he takes the wine glass and bottle, padding off into the kitchen down the hallway. The sound of water running and the pop of a pill bottle ring in Izaya's ears before Shizuo returns, handing Izaya two painkillers with a glass of water, a wet rag waiting in his hand as Izaya swallows the medication.

"Shh, shh," Shizuo kisses his boyfriend's forehead, one arm coming around him as the other lifts the rag to gingerly dab around Izaya's eyes. "You're going to make yourself sick if you cry too much, Izaya." His hand pats and smooths Izaya's hair down, rubbing down his back and back up with a gentle tap of his forehead against his boyfriend's. The hot skin tears further at the hurt building in his chest, aching and icy from knowing that his boyfriend has been crying without him being awake to care for him.

"There," Shiuzo hushes him, wiping away stray tears as Izaya's eyes rise to his. "You shouldn't let me sleep when you're like this, Iz. You know how much I love you and how much it hurts to see you cry." Izaya nods, blinking slowly as his breaths start to calm. Shizuo adds the effect of taking his boyfriend into his arms, offering more tissues and the rag to hold against his eyes as they wait out the wash of grief that comes down on Izaya. It's expected, knowing Izaya has held it all in for far too long.

"It's okay, it's okay," he hums into Izaya's ear, rocking them slowly as his boyfriend's eyes start to droop. "I love you so much, I'll be right here whenever you need me. I'm not going anywhere."

More tissues, nearly a mountain of them, end up discarded in a nearby trash bin by the end of their late night. After Izaya's breaths even out into slight, troubled breaths, Shizuo takes him to bed, carrying him against his chest as he makes his way up the stairs. In his sweatpants is the phone he found earlier on the table, with the contact name _Okaasan_ which he decides can wait for a later conversation. Though from Izaya's lack of a fight, his mother must have had some hand in comforting him.

The thought gives him a little peace, tucking into the back of his mind as he climbs into bed and Izaya holds onto him tightly, wrapped in blankets. All he can do is kiss his boyfriend's forehead, whisper how lucky he is to have him, and kiss his red cheeks where the remaining trails of wetness are.

* * *

 _Another finished prompt request I really enjoyed writing._

 _Thank you for reading._


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